Page:Race distinctions in American Law (IA racedistinctions00stepiala).pdf/130

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not require individual inn-keepers, theatre managers, etc., to entertain Negroes.

The constitutionality of the Civil Rights Bill of 1875, however, was finally settled in 1883. That year five cases[14] reached the Supreme Court, all of which had to do with the civil rights of Negroes. Two of them concerned the rights of colored persons in inns and hotels; two, their rights in theatres; and one, in railroad cars. Mr. Justice Bradley, delivering the opinion of the court, took the ground that the first and second sections of the Civil Rights Bill were unconstitutional for these reasons: (1) They are not authorized by the Thirteenth Amendment, abolishing and prohibiting slavery, because the separation of the races in public places is not a badge of servitude. "It would be running the slavery argument into the ground," he said, "to make it apply to every act of discrimination which a person may see fit to make as to the guests he will entertain, or as to the people he will take into his coach, or cab, or car, or admit to his concert or theatre, or deal with in other matters of intercourse or business." (2) The Civil Rights Bill is not authorized by the Fourteenth Amendment, because that refers to action by the State, while the Bill refers to individual discrimination. It is State action of a particular kind that is prohibited. "Individual invasion of individual rights," he argued, "is not the subject matter of the amendment. . . . It nullifies and makes void all State legislation, and State action of every kind, which impairs the privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States. . . . It does not invest Congress with power to legislate upon subjects which are within the domain of State legislation; but